Books/Websites on Film Editing

Books/Websites on Film Editing
by Ron Whitaker on Apr 9, 2012 at 7:23:43 pm

I'm looking for sources teaching film editing.

I want to clarify something first: I'm NOT looking for sources telling me which button to press in whatever software program. That's not editing!

I'm looking for sources that explain the "art" of editing, how and where to cut from one clip to the next.

I had originally purchased the book "Apple Pro Training Series: The Craft of Editing with Final Cut Pro" by Michael Wohl.

I thought that the book would be useful across platforms (I use Sony Vegas), and all I would have to do is simply pull the files into SV to follow the editing tutorials. Unfortunately, not so. Sony Vegas didn't recognize any of the files!

Does anyone know of any sources, either websites or books, that teach the "art" of editing (for drama, comedy, documentaries, etc) with more generic accompanying source video files so that I can follow along in SV?

Well, the best way to learn that is to watch movies and try to imitate scenes that you like on your own shoots. Just practice. I learned to edit by watching the movies I liked.

As for books, I recommend David Mamet's On Directing Film, if only for the advice to cut out everything that doesn't move the story forward and to make the movie work as a silent film. I also recommend Sidney Lumet's Making Movies.

I read during the Fall "The Five C's of Cinematography." It was an excellent book!

I was just hoping for a book like the Apple Training Series I mentioned in my original post because it came with a couple of DVDs with video clip files on it and the book took you through tutorials with actual editing examples and the video clips on the DVDs followed along. That's how I like to learn, so I was hoping for something similar out there. I'd rather do that than just "read" about it.